Text2Handwriting

Converts an input digital text into a handwritten text image. (.txt -> .png)

Usage

• Import all directories provided in this project. (Characters, src and InputText.txt should be in the same directory.)
• The only option you may want to change is chosenFont in Main.java, if you'd create your own alphabet. (Just write the directory's name, which should be in Characters dir.)
• Run the code and get your output image in Characters as FinalText_XX.png.

How does it work?

• Text gets read from InputText.txt file.
• Because we use .txt file, given text will be one line long. Therefore in the next step we need to skip lines: As the code checks the length of each word if it could fit the page horizontally, it adds \n in corresponding places. And then we have got our "lined" text.
• After preprocessing: Given characters will be joined with an one-pixel wide image (for initial char).
• When a row gets completed, current row image gets stored in a rows directory.
• After all rows get completed, the next step is joining all the rows vertically. ("rows png" -> rows_0.png)
• If height of final rows_0.png img is bigger than allowed page size, multiple pages will be generated automatically.
• The final rows_0.png gets overlaid onto a blank seemless paper background. (Page_X.png)
• build directory gets emptied and final image FinalText_XX.png gets moved to Characters directory.
• We're done!

Limitations

• Only one handwriting, it's hard to create your own alphabet.
• One letter for every character (for now)
• Lines and indentations are too perfect.
• The output image is large and a bit bright. (but it looks like it was scanned, which is affirmative)
• It take a bit of time to generate (minutes) and is somewhat resource-intensive.

Future plans

• Multiple alphabets could be added.
• An AI tool could get a writing image as input, extract each letter with OCR, create itself a new alphabet and save it for later use.
• Multiple letters for a single character could be added to make the writing more natural/intimidating. (This I've tried to make, code is actually ready and works, but I don't have the suitable alphabet to make it work efficiently.)
• Background texture could be changeable, but in order to achieve that, each letter should be cropped out of it's background. (which is hard)

Sample Text

As you can see the letter `s` and `o` are a bit janky. However, this is the text of my English essay assignment, for which I received points for this "handwritten" text.

Contact

bsayitoglu@gmail.com